Freight containers are widely used to transport a variety of goods and products on ships, barges, railroads and over-the-highway vehicles. Container transport is very efficient since it minimizes labor costs, damage to goods and products and reduces the opportunities for pilferage and vandalism.
Containers come in different but standardized lengths. The lengths most widely used are 20, 35, 40, 45 and 48 feet. To the extent possible, the railroad cars which transport containers must be able to accommodate as many different length containers as possible.
One type of container car in use is referred to as a well car since it contains a container receiving well space between the car railway trucks at each end. The bottom of the well is generally at about the height of the wheel axles so that when one or more containers are placed in the well they provide a low profile and a low center of gravity. This makes it possible to stack one or more containers on top to form a double stack container load. When containers are double stacked, the total length of the top layer can be the same as or considerably longer than the first layer because the top layer can extend over the ends of the well and partially over the trucks.
Regardless of the length of the top container it is desirable to stabilize it against lateral and longitudinal movement during transport. One of the recognized ways of stabilizing the top containers is by means of bulkheads at the end of the cars. The bulkheads have an end wall and opposing side walls. The bulkhead end walls stabilize the longest top container, presently 48 feet, against longitudinal movement and the side walls stabilize it against lateral movement. When shorter containers, such as forty and forty-five feet containers, are on top of a lower forty-feet container or two twenty-feet containers end to end, each of the four container-corner engaging restraining members located on the bulkhead side walls are moved from stored position to operating position so as to engage the vertical corners of the top container. Such a bulkhead well car with container restraining members is disclosed in Kaleta U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,188.
As is clear from the Kaleta U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,188, each of the four container-corner restraining members is manipulated manually from stored to operative position and vice versa. Such manual manipulation requires that a laborer stand adjacent the car side where each restraining member is located. Since each car side has four restraining members, the laborer must move from one side of the car to the other side or two laborers must be used simultaneously with one laborer on each side of the car. This involves undesirable labor cost and danger since movement from one car side to the other may require climbing over the car. A need accordingly exists for a system which will permit all of the restraining members to be moved manually from either side of the car to speed container loading with increased safety and less labor.